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In his words: OU's Jeff Capel talks about learning the importance of body language

COMPILED BY JENNI CARLSON •
Published: January 23, 2010

Capel on learning the importance of body language

Oklahoma men’s basketball coach Jeff Capel has emphasized body language with his team this season. Part of the reason is that, as a former point guard playing for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, he knows first-hand about the importance of positive body language.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski used Bobby Hurley, above, as an example to Jeff Capel of how to have good body language. AP photo

I remember one of my first days at practice as a freshman. Coach called me back to his office in the locker room. He showed me a picture. It was a picture of Bobby Hurley dribbling the ball up the floor. And he says to me, "When you see this, what do you see?”

I’m 18. I’m looking.

"I see Bob dribbling up the floor.”

And he was like, "What else?”

I was like, "That’s what I see.”

He said, "When I look at this, I see the look of a cocky point guard, and that’s the way you need to look. Even if things are going bad, at that position, there’s a certain air of confidence that you have to have. You can’t let things get to you. Even if things aren’t going well, you have to stay believing in what you’re doing because people can sense that. Other teams, other players and especially other coaches, they can sense it. They can sense poor body language.”

Obviously, I can sense it in my guys, but when we’re playing other teams and I sense it, I may say something to my team — "We got ’em. Now’s the time to really punch ’em in the mouth.”

It is probably something because of my background, because of having played the point guard position some in college and because it was something that was stressed to me by my coach that I probably pay attention to a little bit more.